Report says 57.8% of U.S. students prefer digital textbooks

September 18, 2012 | 12:19 pm

Back in mid-June, we posted a press release that introduced you to BookBoon.com, a London-based online publisher that offers free open-access textbooks for students.

We heard from BookBoon again this morning; apparently the company recently asked roughly 10,000 students about their preferences between digital textbooks and printed textbooks. According to BookBoon, 2,164 respondents were students based in the U.S.

Even more interesting: BookBoon transformed the survey’s results into a few different blog-friendly infographics; the results of the U.S.-based students responses are illustrated in the graphic below. Directly beneath that is a second infographic that displays the results of the UK-based students who responded to the survey. Click here to see the Dutch students’ results.

Comments:

Always consider the source. The National Association of College Scores comes up with very different data and conclusions. Bookboon is ad supported (yes, ads in textbooks) and those ads are predominantly for personnel placement. Thus, Bookboon has lots of material for engineering but very little to nothing for the humanities.
None of these people care to know what students really want. They are simply trying to use students to fuel their business plans.

Thank you, Frank – that’s a really good point. And thanks as well for the link you shared in your comment on the Wikipedia post. I’ve actually got a few textbook related questions I’d like to run by you; I’ll send an email.